From Satya Nadella to Michael O’leary, controversial comments that landed CEOs in trouble

Read on to know some controversial statements made by CEOs of global giants regarding gender, racism, sensitive global issues and more.

Tony Hayward | The former CEO of British Petroleum got into trouble for his comments on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 2010, which is the largest marine oil spill ever. Hayward said, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” He added that the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest. (Image: Reuters)

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Michael O’leary | Irish airline Ryanair's CEO has often attracted flak for some insensitive remarks. One of his many quotes that made headlines was, "If drink sales are falling off, we get the pilots to engineer a bit of turbulence. That usually spikes sales." (Image: Reuters)

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Mike Jeffries | The former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the most controversial US retail CEOs. He once said, “We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that.” (Image: Representational - Reuters)

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Eric Schmidt | The former Google CEO was prone to gaffes during his career at the tech giant. On the topic of privacy, Schmidt had once said, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” (Image: Reuters)

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Satya Nadella | The CEO of Microsoft, Nadella once said that women must trust "karma" instead of asking for a pay hike, since hard work will always be rewarded. After making this controversial statement about gender pay gap, Nadella apologised and said he was “completely wrong”. (Image: Reuters)

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Travis Kalanick | In 2017, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick got into trouble when a driver he was riding with, complained that pay was falling and so was people’s trust in the company. Kalanick was caught on camera saying, “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own s**t. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!” (Image: Reuters)

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Akbar Al Baker | The Qatar Airways CEO made a sexist remark recently, where he said his position can only be handled by a man because it is a “challenging job”. He later withdrew the statement, after being criticised by a section of the media. (Image: Reuters)

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Evan Spiegel | At the helm of the social media giant Snapchat, Spiegel earned disapproval from users in India when he said, “This app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.” (Image: Reuters)

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John Schnatter | The former CEO of restaurant chain Papa John’s, Schnatter had to resign on account of using a racial slur. He reportedly said that KFC founder Colonel Sanders called "blacks n*****s" and never saw a backlash for it. Schnatter later admitted to using the word and apologised. He stepped down from the post recently. (Image: Reuters)

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Jack Dorsey | CEO of microblogging site Twitter was trolled on Twitter after he posted a screenshot of a purchase at the fast food restaurant company Chick-Fil-A. This was because the food company is considered anti-LGBTQ and the tweet came in the midst of pride month. (Image: Reuters)